The Embrace Opens on the Boston Common

Together, The Embrace and The 1965 Freedom Plaza create a memorial which marks the first step in a transformative vision for the city of Boston. 

Read more about The Embrace, designed in partnership with artist Hank Willis Thomas.

MASS Design Group shared our innovative practice model and design methodology at The Architectural League of New York in the Current Work Series. 

MASS: Seeking Abundance, was held on November 29, 2022.

Watch the Recording Here.

Photo Credit: Iwan Baan

2022 AIA Architecture Firm Award

We are honored to be named recipients of the 2022 Architecture Firm Award by the American Institute of Architects. Read more in Architect Magazine.

Find the AIA’s full statement here.

Photo: Tony Luong

How can an entrepreneurial workspace become a catalyst for rapid, just, and inclusive economic transformation in the region?

Read more about the newly opened Norrsken Kigali House.

The Rwanda Institute for Conservation Agriculture (RICA) – projected to be the first climate positive university in the world – is designed to train Rwanda’s next generation of leaders in agriculture, while supporting national priorities for agricultural development. Conceived and funded by the Howard G. Buffett Foundation, and supported by the Government of Rwanda, MASS partnered with RICA to create a campus informed by principles of Conservation Agriculture and One Health, both of which emphasize the interlinking of ecological, animal, and human health.

RICA received the American Society of Landscape Architect’s 2020 Award of Excellence in the Analysis and Planning category.

The Ellen DeGeneres Campus of the Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund

The Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund, The Ellen Fund, and MASS Design Group celebrate the opening of The Ellen DeGeneres Campus of the Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund.

Read MASS's full statement here.

The Family Health Center on Virginia in McKinney, Texas opened on January 26th, 2021. The center is part of a partnership led by the North Texas Family Health Foundation to expand healthcare access, improve health and wellness outcomes, and increase health equity in McKinney and throughout North Texas.

Read our full statement here.

The J. J. Carroll Housing Redevelopment project advances the vision of aging in community. The 142-unit age-restricted affordable housing community in Boston is thoughtfully designed to help residents live better and longer lives. MASS worked with 2Life Communities to develop a model for high density housing that prioritizes resident connections and communal activities linked to aging well. 

Read our op-ed in The Achitect’s Newspaper, “Lead with a mission-first design process to provide affordable housing,” here.

We are at a pivotal point in our society that calls for heightened attention toward the transformative impact of monuments and memorials. Worldwide, memory and history in built form carry a responsibility to communicate complex histories and provide spaces for healing. The construction of public memory lends weight to particular narratives, bringing us to ask: Who or what is deemed important? Whose voices are we hearing, and who is left out? 

Learn more about the work of the Public Memory and Memorials Lab here.

We believe that every scale of design offers opportunities to benefit users, makers, and the environment. Our furniture design studio, MASS.Made, extends MASS’s commitment to local fabrication by making sustainable products that benefit both people and the planet. Learn more about MASS.Made here.

After a decade of implementing design-build projects, from Butaro Doctors' Housing and Mubuga Primary School in Rwanda, to the GHESKIO Cholera Treatment Center in Haiti and Ilima Primary School in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, we are proud to announce the launch of our construction division, MASS.Build.

Driven by principles of design excellence, environmental stewardship, and human dignity, MASS.Build will expand our ability to deliver projects of impact from start to finish. By investing in local construction capacity MASS.Build assists our partners in delivering projects that maximize value throughout the supply chain.

Click here to read more about MASS.Build.

 

Justice is Beauty: The Work of MASS Design Group is on display at the National Building Museum, in Washington, D.C. through March 2023. The exhibition introduces MASS’s work in the architecture of health from our first project, the Butaro District Hospital in Rwanda, to design for infection control in outbreaks of cholera, Ebola, and coronavirus.

The exhibition is organized around the themes of engaging, healing, fostering, conserving, and marking, and features completed buildings, proposed projects, and applied research initiatives along with photographs, videos, renderings, and models.

Read our full statement here.

Photo: National Building Museum/Elman Studio.